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Batman (1966 Television Series)
Batman is an American superhero television series developed and created by Lorenzo Semple Jr. and William Dozier, based on the DC Comics character of the same name, created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger, and has as of 2015, has been confirmed to be set in the ComicVerse, sharing continuity with other ComicVerse media. The series premiered on ABC on January 12, 1966, and was primarily filmed in Los Angeles, as well as Pasadena, California. In December 1967, ABC renewed the series for a third season, which premiered on September 14, 1967. In February, it was announced that Batman had been cancelled. Batman followed crime-fighting hero, Bruce Wayne/Batman, and his sidekick and legal ward, Dick Grayson/Robin who defend Gotham City from a variety of arch-villains. The series is known for its camp style, upbeat theme music, and its intentionally humorous, simplistic morality (aimed at its largely teenage audience). This included championing the importance of using seat belts, doing homework, eating vegetables, and drinking milk. It was described by Dozier as the only situation comedy on the air without a laugh track. Batman, in total, aired 120 episodes on the ABC network for three seasons from January 12, 1966 to March 14, 1968, twice weekly for the first two seasons, and weekly for the third season. Batman has received generally positive reviews from critics. The series became extraordinarily popular during its time, even becoming the "biggest TV phenomenon." In 2016, television critics, Alan Sepinwell and Matt Zoller Seitz ranked Batman as the 82nd greatest American television show of all time. Series Overview The series focuses on Batman and Robin as they defend Gotham City from its various criminals. Although the lives of their alter-egos, millionare Bruce Wayne and ward Dick Grayson are frequently show, it is usually only briefly, in the context of them being called away on superhero business or in circumstances where they need to employ their public identities to assist in their crime-fighting, The "Dynamic Duo" typically come to the aid of the Gotham City Police Department upon the latter being stumped by a super-villain. Throughout each episode, Batman and Robin follow a series of (seemingly) improbable clues to discover the supervillain's plan, then figure out how to thwart that plan and capture the criminal. For the first two seasons, Batman aired twice a week on consecutive nights. Every story was a two-parter, except for two three-parters featuring villainous team-ups (the Joker and the Penguin, then the Penguin and Marsha the Queen of Diamonds) in season 2. The titles of each multi-part story usually rhyme. The third and final season, which aired one episode a week and introduced Yvonne Craig as Barbara Gordon/Batgirl, consists of self-contained stories, and each ending ended with a teaser featuring the next episode's guest villain, except for the series finale. The cliffhangers between multiple-part stories consist of villains holding someone captive, usually Batman or Robin, with the captive(s) being threatened by death, serious injury, or another fate. These cliffhangers are resolved early in the follow-up episode. Ostensibly a crime series, the style of the show was in fact campy and tongue-in-cheek. It was a true comedy situation, where said situations were exaggerated and generally played for laughs. This increased as the seasons progressed, with the addition of ever greater absurdity. However, the characters always took the absurd situations extremely seriously, which added to the comedy. Cast and Characters Regular Cast *'Adam West as Bruce Wayne/Batman:' A multi-millionaire industrialist whose parents were murdered when he was a child and now secretly uses his vast fortune to fight crime as the masked vigilante Batman. With the exception of two episodes, the series refrained from mentioning his origins as a "crime orphan". Producer William Dozier cast Adam West in the role after seeing him perform as the James Bond-like spy Captain Q in a Nestlé Quik television advertisement. Lyle Waggoner had screen-tested for the role, althought West ultimately won out because it was said that he was the only person who could deliver his lines with a straight face. West later voiced an animated version of the title character on The New Adventures of Batman. *'Burt Ward as Dick Grayson/Robin:' Batman's sidekick, dubbed the "Boy Wonder", and a high school student noted for his recurring interjections of "Holy _________, Batman!" The series avoids referencing Robin's origins as Bruce Wayne's fellow "crime orphan", as the courts of justice appointed Bruce as Dick's legal guardian. Alongside Batman, the two are nicknamed the Dynamic Duo. Ward later voiced an animated version of the character on The New Adventures of Batman. *'Alan Napier as Alfred:' Batman's loyal butler and Batgirl's secret confidant. He is the only person to know the true identities of Batman, Robin, and Batgirl. *'Neil Hamilton as Commissioner James Gordon:' The Commissioner of the Gotham City Police Department and one of Batman's two major police contacts. He summons the Dynamic Duo via the Batphone or the Bat-Signal. *'Stafford Repp as Chief Miles O'Hara:' The GCPD's Chief of Police, and Batman's other major police contact. The character was created by developer Lorenzo Semple Jr. for the series as someone for Commissioner Gordon to talk to and was later briefly added to the comics. *'Madge Blake as Harriet Cooper:' Dick Grayson's maternal aunt. She first appeared in the comics two years before the series premiered to give Batman and Robin a reason to be secretive about their dual identities. *'Yvonne Craig as Barbara Gordon/Batgirl (main: season 3):' Commissioner Gordon's daughter, the Gotham City librarian, and the crime fighting partner of Batman and Robin for season 3. Occasionally, the threesome would be known as the "Terrific Trio". *'William Dozier as Narrator:' An omniscient and omnipresent unseen individual who daily narrates the episodes, plots of the villains, and adventures of Batman, Robin, and Batgirl. Doizer was uncredited for his role. According to Adam West's memoir, Back to the BatcCave, his first exposure to the series concept was through reading a sample script in which Batman enters a nightclub in his complete costume and requests a booth near the wall, as he "shouldn't wish to attract attention." It was the scrupulously formal dialogue, and the way that Batman earnestly believed he could avoid standing out while wearing a skintight blue-and-grey costume convinced West of the character's comic potential. With the death of Adam West on June 9, 2017, Burt Ward is now the only surviving main Batman cast member. Recurring Villains *'Cesar Romero as The Joker:' A clown-themed, prank-loving villain and Batman's archenemy, who leaves behind jokes as clues to his next crime. He is the overall main antagonist of the show. *'Burgess Meredith as The Penguin:' A penguin-themed gentlemen thief who commits crimes using multipurpose umbrellas. He is the secondary antagonist of the show. *'Frank Gorshin (season 1 and season 3) and John Austin (season 2) as The Riddler:' A criminal who leaves behind riddles as clues to his crimes. He is a major antagonist of the show. *'Julie Newmar (season 1 and 2) and Eartha Kitt as Catwoman:' A cat-themed jewel thief and cat burglar who has a complicated love-hate relationship with Batman. She is a supporting antagonist of the show. *'Victor Buono as Professor William EcElroy/King Tut:' An Egyptologist who developed a split-personality after being struck on the head during a student protest. Each time he is hit on the head, he switches between the personalities of a university professor and a reincarnated version of the pharaoh, Tutankhamun. *'George Sanders (season 1), Otto Preminger (season 2), and Eli Wallach (season 2) as Dr. Art Schivel/Mr. Freeze:' A mad scientist who, after exposure to a freeze solution, now needs below-freezing temperatures to survive. His weapon of choice is a freeze-blast gun, capable of freezing its target solid, as well as producing a heat/incendiary beam, as was seen in his first appearance. *'David Wayne as Jervis Tetch/Mad Hatter:' A formally dressed villain with an obsession for collecting hats (in actual fact, he steals that hats from his victims, then knocks them out with a mesmerizing ray that pops out of the top of his hat). *'Vincent Price as Egghead:' A smug, bald-headed genius whose crimes and speech patterns involve eggs. *'Carolyn Jones as Marsha, Queen of Diamonds:' A criminal with a fondness for jewelry. *'Cliff Robertson as Shame:' A Western-themed villain, whose partners at various times include Okie Annie and Calamity Jan. The three of them spoof famous Western characters from the movies (namely Shane, Annie Oakley, and Calamity Jane). *'Anne Baxter as Olga, Queen of the Cossacks:' A Russian-accented, redheaded villainess often paired with Egghead. Baxter had earlier appeared in one story as "Zelda the Great", a master of illusion whose crimes are tied in with magic tricks. *'Milton Berle as Louie the Lilac:' A gangster with a fondness for flowers. *'Rudy Vallee as Lord Marmaduke Ffogg:' A British gentleman from Londinium whose crimes are themed around fog and smog. *'Glynis Johns as Lady Penelope Peasoup:' The sister and accomplice of Lord Ffogg. She is the head of a "finishing school for young ladies", which turns out to be a school in thieving for teen girls. Production Origin In the early 1960s, Ed Graham Productions optioned the television rights to the comic book, Batman, and planned a straightforward juvenile adventure show, much like Adventures of Superman and The Lone Ranger, to air on CBS on Saturday mornings. East Coast ABC executive, Yale Udoff, a Batman fan in his childhood, contacted ABC executives Harve Bennett and Edgar J. Scherick, who were already considering developing a television series based on a comic-strip action hero, to suggest a prime-time Batman series in the hip and fun style of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. When negotiations between CBS and Graham stalled, DC Comics quickly reobtained rights and made the deal with ABC, which farmed the rights out to 20th Century Fox to produce the series. In turn, 20th Century Fox handed the project to William Dozier and his production company, Greenway Productions. ABC and Fox were expecting a hip and fun, yet serious adventure show. However, Dozier, who had never before read comic books, concluded, after reading several Batman comics for research, that the only way to make the show work was to do it as a pop-art campy comedy. Originally, espionage novelist Eric Ambler was to have scripted a TV movie that would launch the television series, but he dropped out after learning of Dozier's campy comedy approach. Eventually, two sets of screen tests were filmed, one with Adam West and Burt Ward and the other with Lyle Waggoner and Peter Deyell, with West and Ward winning the roles. Season 1 Lorenzo Semple Jr. had signed on as head script writer. He wrote the pilot script, and generally wrote in a pop-art adventure style. Stanley Ralph Ross, Stanford Sherman, and Charles Hoffman were script writers who generally leaned more towards campy comedy, and in Ross's case, sometimes outright slapstick and satire. It was originally intended as a one-hour show, but ABC changed the premiere date from Fall 1966 to January of that year. With the network having only two early-evening half-hour time slots available, the show was split into two parts, to air twice a week in 30-minute installments. A cliffhanger connected the two episodes, echoing old movie serials. Some ABC affiliates weren't happy that ABC included a fourth commercial minute in every episode of Batman. One affiliate refused to air the series. The network insisted it needed the extra advertising revenue. The Joker, the Penguin, the Riddler, Catwoman, Mr. Freeze, and the Mad Hatter, villains who originated in the comic books, all appeared in the series, although the plots for which were deliberately villain-driven. According to the producers, Frank Gorshin was selected to portray Riddler due to the fact that he was a Batman fan since childhood. Catwoman was portrayed by three different actresses during the series run: by Julie Newmar in the first two seasons, by Lee Meriwether in the feature film based on the series, and by Eartha Kitt in the third and final season. Season 2 Semple's participation in the series decreased in the second season. In his autobiography, Back to the Batcave, Adam West explained to Jeff Rovin, to whom he dictated the autobiography after rejecting an offer to contribute to The Official "Batman" Batbook, written by Joel Eisner, that when work on the second season commenced following the completion of the feature film, Dozier, his immediate deputy Howie Horwitz, and the rest of the cast and crew rushed their preparation. Thus, they failed to give themselves enough time to determine what they wanted to do with the series during season two. Season 3 By season three, ratings were falling and the future of the series seemed uncertain. To attract new viewers, Dozier opted to introduce a female character. He came up with the idea of using Batgirl, who in her civilian identity would be Commissioner James Gordon's daughter, Barbara Gordon, and asked the editor of the Batman comics to further develop the character (who had made her debut in a 1966 issue of Detective Comics). To convince ABC executives to introduce Batgirl as a regular on the show, a promotional short featuring Yvonne Craig as Batgirl and Tim Herbert as Killer Moth was produced. Batgirl was the first superheroine to appear in an ongoing capacity on television. The show was reduced to one episode a week, with mostly self-contained episodes, although the following week's villain would be introduced in a tag at the end of each episode, similar to a soap opera. Accordingly, the narrator's cliffhanger phrases were mostly eliminated, most episodes ending with him encouraging viewers to watch next week. Aunt Harriet was reduced to just two cameo appearances during the third season, due to Madge Blake's poor health and the issue of trying to fit so many characters (Batman, Robin, Batgirl, Alfred, Commissioner Gordon, Chief O'Hara, and a guest villain) into a half hour episode. Another cast change during the final season was replacing Julie Newmar, who had been a popular recurring guest villain as the Catwoman during the first two seasons. Singer and actress Eartha Kitt assumed the role for season three, as Newmar was working on the film, Mackenna's Gold, at that time and thus unable to appear. In the United States, Kitt's performance in the series marked the second mainstream television success of a black female, following Nichelle Nichols as Lt. Uhura in Star Trek, and continued breaking the racial boundaries of the time. Kitt's performance as Catwoman would also, later, inspire Halle Berry's portrayal of the character in the 2004 film Catwoman, in which Berry would mimic Kitt's famous purrs. Frank Gorshin, the original actor to play the Riddler, returned for a single appearance after a one-season hiatus, during which John Astin made one appearance in the role. The nature of the scripts and acting started to enter into the realm of surrealism. In addition, the third season was much more topical, with references to hippies, mods, and distinctive 1960s slang, which the previous two seasons had avoided. Cancellation Near the end of the third season, ratings had dropped significantly, and ABC cancelled the show. NBC agreed to take over the series, but before they could do so, they discovered that hundreds of thousands of dollars of Batman sets had been destroyed. Rather than rebuild the sets, NBC dropped the project. Reruns of the series have been seen on a regular basis in the United States. They are currently shown on the classic TV networks TeleXitos, weekdays dubbed in Spanish, as well as Saturday mornings on IFC. Camera Shots From the beginning, cameras were purposely placed out of level with the set (known as "Dutch tilt"), and characters were filmed from high and low angles. This technique was most often used when filming on the set of a villain's lair to lend a surreal, comic-book quality to the scenes, as well as to imply or merely remind the viewer that the criminals were crooked. Batmobile The original Batmobile from the 1960s TV series was auctioned on January 19, 2013, at the Barrett-Jackson auction house in Scottsdale, Arizona. It was sold for $4.2 million. Tie-In Music Several cast members recorded music tied into the series. Adam West released a single titled "Miranda", a country-tinged pop song that he actually performed in costume during live appearances in the 1960's. Frank Gorshin released a song titled "The Riddler", which was composed and arranged by Mel Tormé. Burgess Meredith recorded a spoken-word single called "The Escape" backed with "The Capture", which consisted of the Penguin narrating his recent crime spree to a jazz beat. Burt Ward recorded a song called "Boy Wonder, I Love You", written and arranged by Frank Zappa. In 1966, Batman: The Exclusive Original Soundtrack Album was released on LP, featuring music by Nelson Riddle and snippets of dialogue from Adam West, Burt Ward, Burgess Meredith, Frank Gorshin, Anne Baxter (as Zelda the Great) and George Sanders (the first Mr. Freeze). The "Batman Theme" was included, along with titles like "Batusi A Go! Go!", "Batman Thaws Mr. Freeze", and "Batman Blues". It was reissued later on compact disc. Category:Shared Multiverse Category:Real World Category:Television Series Category:ABC Series Category:Batman (1966)